Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

We still have time to mess this up!

After roe, women are no longer free.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Republicans in disarray!

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

The willow is too close to the house.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Second rate reporter says what?

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

You are here: Home / Music / Late night song of the week

Late night song of the week

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Ray Charles, “Mess Around” (1953)
Crazy week here, hard drive meltdowns, computer to the indifferent shop, and offline for two long days. I realized, for better or worse, that online is basically where I live nowadays so I really felt lost there for awhile. But I can always put on something from The Birth of Soul and feel something like I have approximated coming home again. Maybe it’s like that for you too? Don’t miss the iconic moment here when Ray Charles drives the wedge of silence between the words “pit” and “barbecue” in the first line, and somehow launches the whole thing to high levels of excitement.

One more: “It Should’ve Been Me”
More stuff at Can’t Explain.

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34Comments

  6. 6.

    The Dangerman

    @efgoldman:

    I saw both Elvis’ and the Beatles’ Ed Sullivan Show premieres.

    I can vaguely recall “All You Need Is Love” on Sullivan; now, I look at the clips and see Jagger wiped out in the audience and I don’t think I even know who Jagger was…

    …and I was far from clear in my Tull; I was heading back to Year 1. The way, WAY back machine (but I love Tull and most all progressive music; give me Floyd, Tull, and Genesis (with some derivatives, meaning, solo Gabriel) and I’m a happy deserted castaway).

  8. 8.

    burnspbesq

    New Jayhawks album, the first since 1995 with both Olson and Louris Involved, out next Tuesday. New Wilco the following Tuesday.

    Just ordered Sonny Rollins’ “Road Shows, Vol. 2”. It includes most of the historic 80th birthday concert, the first time Sonny and Ornette ever performed together. Can’t wait to hear it.

  12. 12.

    burnspbesq

    Blackburn – Arsenal is the early match on espn2 tomorrow. Not worth getting up at 4:30. Chelsea – ManU on Sunday. That could be good.

    Australia – Ireland kicks off in about three hours. The lack of US teevee coverage of the RWC is unfortunate.

  14. 14.

    Jewish Steel

    Looking through some amazon recommendations led me to a chap named Ioannis Anastassakis. He has a tremolo technique book. I could use some work on my tremolo for sure. It “gallops ” and I don’t really have that much control over it.

    Let’s see what this cat’s got up on youtube.

    Oh, dear.

  15. 15.

    CT Voter

    LOVE this song. I have it on tape. Yes. Tape. Recorded from an actual vinyl album. And I have a car with a tape deck. So last century.

    And when I play this song, suddenly I find myself doing 80 on I-84. And singing along.

  16. 16.

    Yutsano

    Can’t do too much night shifting this eve. They’re shutting off the power in my building and my laptop battery sucks. But I’ll do what I can.

  26. 26.

    Jewish Steel

    @Omnes: Right. David Gilmour, George Harrison were hardly speed demons. EVHalen was real monster, but I always wanted to hear 7 perfectly placed, artfully articulated notes from him. That’s the real challenge, I think.

  28. 28.

    AA+ Bonds

    Rep union shit everywhere, buy surplus Teamsters convention hats and wear them around, the season is starting, put on your colors.

    Point out to whiners that all that shit is guaran-goddamn-teed Made in America.

    The Democrats need to get out front on the labor issue now, because otherwise it will be the point of attack for Fox during the general.

  29. 29.

    AA+ Bonds

    You think I’m lying? I told you, read Fox News everyday.

    This party line was rolled out on the Wall Street Journal Editorial Report on September 3rd. Expect to see this wedge driven hard.

  33. 33.

    tomvox1

    Maybe I am a bit heretical but for good or ill this awesome Ray Charles song is also inextricably linked in my mind to the late, great John Candy in Planes, Trains & Automobiles:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmpMqa89wx8

    And the sequence after the song ends might be one of the funniest in American film comedy… :D

  34. 34.

    Scott Supak

    OK, to trot out one of my backstage stories, which I hardly ever tell anymore, I was working as a prop man on the Joan Rivers show when Ray Charles was a guest. Being young (I later learned that we stagehands really shouldn’t ask for autographs) and a huge fan, I asked for Ray’s autograph, and his people shuffled him off, but one of his body guards stopped and told me that he didn’t sign autographs, but that I shouldn’t feel bad, because even President Reagan asked him for one.

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